


The Lark and the Nightingale

by Lucyemers



Series: Seasonal [3]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Autumn, Autumn without plot, F/M, Fluff, Rain, References to Shakespeare, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12169137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/pseuds/Lucyemers
Summary: "Don't leave, it's raining. Stay in bed a little longer."





	The Lark and the Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: “Good morning. No, don’t get up, it’s raining, let’s stay in bed a little longer…” 
> 
> from the prompt list of Autumn starters here: https://lucyemers.tumblr.com/post/165130989231/fall-starters-because-i-cant-help-myself

She only realizes how cold the wind has gotten when she presses her hand to the key in the pocket of her uniform. She can’t count the number of times she had allowed her fingers to brush over it throughout the night. When tedium overwhelmed her she sought out the small metal object in her pocket, barely suppressing a smile as she did so. His face had been all awkward blushes and he'd tripped over his own words as he offered it to her the evening before. “Come over in the morning if you'd like--or any time, now that you have your own key.” She'd taken it from his outstretched palm and kissed first his cheeks, warm with blushing and then his lips, before she'd had to rush out the door for a night shift. 

The metal is freezing against her palm as she climbs the stairs. She hears the thunder clap half-way up, and by the time she has her key in the door, the rain has started pouring overhead. She toes off her shoes, then for a moment she closes her eyes, leans back against the door, breathes, listens to the rain. There is a soft dripping and she looks up to see a leak coming through the ceiling. Peering under the sink she finds a dusty metal bucket and positions it to capture the drips, before shedding her apron and sitting, gingerly on the edge of the bed. She begins to take off her stockings, to unpin her cap, and there's a soft swish of the bedclothes as his fingers brush, clumsy with sleep, along her back, and stop to trace slow circles on the inside of her wrist. She's too exhausted to take off her dress before she gives in to the pull of his drowsy half dreaming form, and lies down to press all of her cold curves into his warm angles. She closes her eyes and listens to the rain without and the dripping within, and lies still enough to hear his slow quiet breathing join the soothing symphony. 

When she wakes, not half an hour later, he is reluctantly pulling himself out of bed, leaving her cold in his absence. When he returns and the tiny bed dips beneath him as he sits, she blinks sleepily up at him, grasps his hand, murmurs, “Don’t leave. It’s raining. Stay in bed a little longer.” He doesn’t answer, but the smile that always starts in his eyes breaks across his face, fading a bit as he looks grudgingly, toward the door, towards responsibility. He sighs heavily and flops back onto the bed next to her and leans in until their foreheads are touching and his breath is warm on her cheek. She tries to hold the moment, but it’s like holding her breath: she knows he’ll be up and out the door in a matter of minutes. Her mind flashes back to lingering, half remembered snippets of verse learned years ago in school. “It was the nightingale”, she whispers into his ear. He chuckles and pulls her closer, the same sleepy smile across his face, but his eyes alight and alert now with his own remembering, “It was the lark. No nightingale”, he obliges, his words at odds with his fingers that have found the top buttons of her uniform, and with his mouth that has begun planting kisses about her collarbone. She nuzzles her nose into his hair breathing deep, her fingers running through his sleep rumpled hair, pulling him in for a kiss. 

When he breaks away she makes one last attempt, “Believe me love, it was the--”

“The telephone?” he finishes, laughing ruefully as the harsh ringing cuts through the sound of the rain. She lets her hands linger across his back even as he’s pulling away, off to answer the call that will, inevitably, hurry his leaving. She settles in, starts to give in to proper sleep, but as she’s nodding off she hears the whir of the record player, the music barely audible. She smiles to herself: he’s barely able to start the day without it. She has to strain to hear at first, but then the music swells and it’s unmistakable: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.


End file.
